We love to share testimonies when the battle is over. We love to shout when the Visa finally arrives, when the job offer is signed, or when the sickness is gone.
But what happens in the middle?
What happens when you are stuck in the waiting room for two whole years?
Between 2021 and 2024, my family lived in a pressure cooker. To the outside world, we were coping. Inside, we were drowning. My wife, Kemi, had just returned from maternity leave, only to be laid off and reported to the NMC and DBS due to an oversight. With an active case, her career was frozen. No one would hire her.
At the same time, our Visa was expiring. We applied for “Further Leave to Remain” (FLR), a process we hoped would be quick. It took two agonising years. And just to add fuel to the fire, my business back home collapsed.
In the UK, we were immigrants in a system that wasn’t letting us work freely, with bills that didn’t care about our situation.
The First Formula: Human Effort
At the start of this crisis, we did what any responsible adult would do. We panicked, and then we borrowed.
We took a loan of £7,000 from two friends just to keep the lights on. We were grateful for it, but money borrowed to pay bills has a way of disappearing fast.
Everything in the house seemed to break at once. The furniture, the appliances. It felt like the walls were crumbling around us.
I was doing small freelance gigs online, earning a little. My wife was signed up with a nursing agency, but agency work is brutal, as you know. You are not guaranteed shifts. You sit by the phone, hoping someone else calls in sick so you can buy food.
Eventually, the £7,000 ran out. We were back to square one.
The Turning Point: A Voice in the Chaos
I picked up my phone to do what I did the last time: call a few friends and ask for a loan.
But as I was scrolling through my contacts, praying under my breath, I heard a voice in my spirit. It was quiet, but it was clear:
“That it was like that the other time doesn’t mean it has to be like that this time.”
I froze. I knew it was God. He was challenging me. He was saying, “Lekan, the first time you used your formula. This time, I want you to use Mine.”
I told my wife. We looked at our empty bank account, looked at each other, and made a crazy decision. We did make the call, unfortunately. We got a loan, but had to give it to a friend in a similar situation.
For our family, we decided to trust God to be our Banker.
The God of “The Mistake”
Fast forward nearly a year later? We hadn’t used a borrowed dime.
How? I still get emotional thinking about it. God didn’t drop a bag of cash from the sky. He did something better. He got involved in the details of our day.
There were three or four specific times when things were desperate. My wife had no shifts. The agency was silent. Then, her phone would buzz.
“Hi XYZ, are you available for this 10-day shift?”
The text was meant for another nurse named XYZ. My wife would type back, hands shaking, “This is Kemi. But I am available.”
And the agency would reply, “Oh! That was a mistake. But sure, you can have it.”
A 10-day shift was enough to pay an entire month’s bills. God hijacked a text message meant for “XYZ” to feed our family. He confused the system to bless His children.
The God of the Turkey
It wasn’t just bills. God cared about our feelings, too.
That December, money was tight. Kemi went to the grocery store and saw a big, full Turkey. She stood there looking at it, wishing we could have a proper Christmas dinner, but we just couldn’t justify the cost. She walked away from it without saying a word to anyone but God and me.
That same evening, a family friend knocked on our door.
In his hands? The exact same Turkey.
He didn’t know we wanted it. He didn’t know we couldn’t afford it. But the Father who owns the cattle on a thousand hills knew.
The God of Cancellation
And what about that first loan? The one we took before we learned to trust fully?
One of the friends called us. She knew we were struggling. She simply said, “Forget it.”
She wrote off £4,000. Just like that. The burden was lifted.
He Is With You in the “Now”
We are planning to put this full testimony in a book soon, but I wanted to share this with you now for one reason.
You might be waiting for the “big” answer—the job, the healing, the spouse. But while you wait for the future, God wants to be your God in the now.
He is the God of the daily bread. He is the God of the accidental text message. He is the God of the surprise Turkey.
Maybe you feel like you have blown it. Maybe you took a loan you shouldn’t have, or you made a bad investment. Hear me clearly: God still cares. He is not punishing you; He is fathering you.
If He did it for us immigrants with no status, no job, and no hope, He will do it for you. Put down the panic. Look up. Your help is closer than you think. Amen.